How was ET back in 2008?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by Saltynuts, May 3, 2018.

  1. I was just doing some digging, and I saw a post from 2008. I had assumed ET was a more recent thing. Anyways, what where ETers saying back then? When Lehman fell? Bear Sterns fell? Market dropped like a rock and then kept on dropping? Did a ton of ETers see it coming, or at least catch on real quick, or were most holding out to sell until the bitter end?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Baron

    Baron ET Founder

    It's fairly easy to explore this in a few simple steps. Let's say you wanted to see the Journals that people were maintaining when the Journals forum was first set up.

    1. Go to the Journals forum.
    2. You'll see various column headers at the top of the thread list. Click on the header called Start Date.
    3. You're now viewing all threads listed by their start date, but the default when you first clcik it is descending order, meaning that the newest threads are shown first.
    4. Now click on the Start Date header one more time. Now you'll see everything in ascending order, meaning the oldest threads are shown first, starting way back from 2001.
    5. Starting from that point, you can now easily navigate through the page numbers of the thread list to stumble upon newer years like 2008.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2018
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  3. Why would you assume ET was invented in 2012...when it clearly says in big, bold letters on the home page "The #1 Social Network for Traders. Since 1997." ?

    I wish I were trading back in 2008. God, that sounds like such a magical time...to be dabbling...in the market. Better yet, I wish I were trading back in 1998.

    I'm also very curious...if any ET'ers made a shitload of money during the financial market crisis of '08/'09.
    And also 1998/99...did any very old ET'ers made a boatload of money?
    I want to know who is the richest, or most successful, ET'er of All-Time... o_O someone who is/was a member, not just a visitor.
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2018
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  4. JSOP

    JSOP

    Hi Baron,

    Is there any way to search for threads and posts in general not just in a specific forum around a period of time say 2008? It would be interesting to see how the trading community were doing, what were the sentiments around some historical time of the financial market.

    Thanks
     
  5. Baron

    Baron ET Founder

    On the advanced search page, you can search for posts that are "Newer Than" a certain date to weed out older posts.

    https://www.elitetrader.com/et/search/?type=post
     

  6. Warren Buffet ....... about 10 years ago there was a picture posted of him wearing an ET shirt - I think Baron was next to him.

    I doubt he ever an ET member though.
     
  7. JSOP

    JSOP

    Thanks Baron. Just a little suggestion, would be nice to be able to type in the year instead of having to click through all the months all the year all the way from 2018 to 2008 through ten years of time.
     
  8. Fall of 2008 was incredible...VIX hit 70/80 quite often. Made 20 to 50 trades a day...felt like playing a high speed video game at times...was drained at the end of the day! My favorite was the last 20 minutes of the trading day...institutions were forced to liquidate and ETF's had to play their little game too...the swings were incredible. I miss those days, but I wouldn't have the stamina to duplicate such an adrenaline based effort now. I've always believed in a calm and calculated approach to trading, but I couldn't resist the opportunity back then to be constantly in and out...the trends persisted so much...and there were so many!!!!!!!!!
     
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  9. CALLumbus

    CALLumbus

    Hello Saltynuts,

    I remember guys like "lescor" back then who really thrived on the extreme volatility at that time and had crazy days and overall fantastic profits.
    Then I also remember a guy (Robert Weinstein) who did some nice trading in his journal first, but then really got fuXXed in Lehman in middle of September 2008:
    https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/weinstein-trading-and-fading.126492/page-30

    "I woke up this morning and went to check the price of LEH as I carried it overnight. I have to say it was down so much in pre market trading that at first I thought I made a mistake in the symbol.

    I sold off about half the shares at about $5 and helf the rest as I have seen this before and normally there is a recovery.

    Came back about 20 mins later and LEH was around $4 so I bought back much of what I sold.

    I was able to trade it back and forth and actually recovered about $7000 by scalping it all day.

    It was a mistake to hold overnight regardless of the outcome.

    During the last 15 mins of trading today I was selling off and going to take the hit and walk. News came out that LEH is in talks (big suprise i know) and then LEH started moving higher and very quickly. As a result I am going to once again hold this overnight. I dont actually like the idea and I just as soon cut the loss but I do have a buy signal and I feel the odds favor holding (something that was not the case yesterday)

    My gut tells me there is some positive news tomorrow or at least nothing negative and at the least it will have a dead cat bounce from shorts covering.

    This is a good example of why not to trade in too large of size and to go slower than what it feels like you should."



    That Robert did not trade very large size, but went from being ahead + 31149 for the month to being down -14095 for the month within one day.
     
  10. Dustin

    Dustin

    #10     May 4, 2018
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